‘It’s real. And it’s real bad.’ Macon COVID-19 survivor describes struggle
Editor’s note: In late August, well-known Macon restaurant owner Tommy Sadler was diagnosed with COVID-19. Sadler, 58, who owns Tommy’s Bakery & Cafe on the city’s west side, is also a diabetic. He recently spoke to Telegraph reporter Joe Kovac Jr. about his battle with the virus. Quotes gleaned from their conversation outside Sadler’s Thomaston Road eatery offer a glimpse into Sadler’s medical struggle and ongoing recovery. Sadler, a self-described “COVID-19 survivor,” also shared his thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic. Sadler’s words — in paragraph form and lightly edited for clarity — appear below:
People that don’t wear a mask because they think they’re invincible are just setting themselves up for a bad situation.
I wore a mask. You know, I didn’t wear one all the time. I’d wear one as much as I could, but I didn’t go places. I didn’t go shopping. I didn’t go to stores.
It wasn’t that I didn’t take it seriously. I probably didn’t take it as seriously as I should have.
I think there’s still people that think this thing was created by the government to control you. Now let me tell you something, the government can’t control me, OK? I’m the most uncontrollable person you’ve ever met. I’m the most rebellious person you’ve ever met when somebody tries to tell me to do something I don’t want to do. So that theory is out the window.
I went to the emergency room on a Friday night. I couldn’t breathe very well. I was really having a hard time. They admitted me immediately. They said I had a little bit of pneumonia and I was positive for the virus. They kept me till Wednesday morning and sent me home. I was not ready to go home. I knew I wasn’t ready. I knew I was sick.
I got home that Wednesday still feeling bad. I could not walk from one end of my house to the other without stopping to catch my breath. By Friday, all I did was sit in my chair all day trying to breathe. I went to bed and it was probably 9 o’clock. I laid down and absolutely thought I was drowning. I knew I had to go to the hospital right then. I’m dying.
The best way I’ve been able to describe it is: Run across this parking lot, come back up here and let me give you a straw and a wet sponge to breathe through and have you try to catch your breath.
At the hospital, I heard them talking about ICU and a ventilator, and I said, “Don’t put me on a vent.” That wasn’t even an option with me. I said, “I’ll die in this bed. I’m not going on a vent.”
I was on heavy oxygen, steroids and remdesivir. In my mind, the only way to have gotten better is to fight through it and breathe — make yourself breathe and exercise them lungs. I don’t want oxygen breathing for me. I had a young doctor from New York. He said, “It’s gonna be a fight. You’re gonna have to fight. The more you fight, the better it’s gonna be.”
The worst part of the hospital stay is not so much the sickness. It was the loneliness, the isolation. I can see how people just about go bonkers in there. You ain’t got no visitors. Nurses and doctors come in with a full suit on. They do what they’ve got to do and they get the heck out of Dodge. And you are alone. It will mess with your mind.
I’m still having severe pain in my right lung. I went to the emergency room and they’ve X-rayed it. They were scared I had a blood clot. They just said it’s the after-effects of COVID. I had it so bad, they said it could take a year for my lung to heal itself — if it ever heals.
If I wear this mask for over five minutes, I feel like I’m suffocating because I don’t have any air to start with. If I’m back there in that kitchen over a hot grill or a hot stove with this thing on, it is absolutely about to kill me. Because of what I’m still dealing with.
I ain’t the mask police. I’m a firm believer that if you’re a grown individual, you do what’s best for you. But as a COVID survivor, I would prefer that you wear a mask.
You can go to any grocery store, anyplace, and you’ve got people walking with their mask on with a little kid by the hand that ain’t wearing a mask. What is wrong with you? If you are believing it can harm you, why have you not got that little kid in a mask?
I don’t think it’s a matter of if you’re gonna get COVID or get exposed to COVID. I think it’s a matter of when. I don’t think there’s anybody that’s not gonna get exposed to it or hasn’t already been exposed to it.
I think there’s still many people out there that don’t take coronavirus seriously. I talked to a 16-year-old kid this week. He was helping me do some stuff. We were in the woods. We’d killed some hogs and we were toting them out. I said, “You’re gonna have to do the physical part because I can’t. I don’t have the wind.” He said, “What’s wrong?” And I told him. He said, “Really? I didn’t think it was really real.” I said, “Son, let me tell you something. It’s real. And it’s real bad. ... You need to be careful.’”
I don’t care who the president is. I don’t care who’s in office. This thing ain’t going away. It’s a virus. It won’t magically appear and magically disappear.
I don’t think the virus itself has divided us. We’re all human. We don’t want to see anybody suffer, regardless of who you are.
The next big thing is gonna be the vaccine. Who’s gonna take it, who ain’t gonna take it?
If they tell me, “Tommy, if you take this vaccine, you won’t never have to worry about coronavirus again,” you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna break the line to get to the front. I’d take the vaccine in a heartbeat. I’d give it to myself. Give me the syringe.
This story was originally published November 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.